TV4 (Swedish)

August 31, 2010Climate Change, FORES, It's personal nowNo Comments

This morning I was interviewed by TV4 about the op-ed in Dagens Nyheter (see below). The clip can be viewed here:

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A Bretton Woods for the Climate

June 28, 2010Climate Change, FORES, It's personal now1 Comment

A Bretton Woods for the Climate

I can now call myself a published author!

At a recent World Bank conference in Stockholm FORES published the book “A Bretton Woods for the Climate” co-authored by me and two colleagues. In two parts and just over 200 pages we go through the key issues of the global negotiations on climate change; Institutions, governance, targets and timetables, burden sharing, financing, cap and trade, adaptation and mitigation and non-compliance mechanisms.

We try to sketch up a model for how to solve these issues and how to, in a cost effective and credible way, build a global framework that ensures countries take on strong commitments and follow though on them.

The book is a result of a thought process started at the Copenhagen climate summit when we (as well as the rest of the world) disappointedly watched world leaders fail to agree on how to solve the greatest problem facing the planet today. Perhaps, we thought, it’s not political will that’s lacking, but rather institutions fit for the tasks? Perhaps a different model than the 194 country, consensus based, setup of the UNFCCC should be explored?

This book suggests so and can be downloaded free of cost at: http://fores.se/assets/144/FORES_A_Bretton_Woods_for_the_Climate.pdf

Political trilemma?!

May 13, 2010Climate Change, Harvard, It's personal now, Miscellaneous1 Comment

Interesting article about the “trilemma” of democracy, national sovereignty and globalization. According to Dani Rodrik at Harvard one can’t have all three without one of them getting compromised. You can have democracy and a strong nation state, but then have to limit globalization. You can have democracy and globalization, but then you’ll have to limit the nation state and opt for some kind of global governance system.

I often think and discuss this issue. Today you can’t wake up in the morning, get dressed and have breakfast without having had connections with the whole world. The clothes you wear are produced in Asia, you eat food from Africa and Europe and drink coffee from Latin America. We have strong nation states and globalization, but somehow democracy is compromised as the consequences of our decision making process is no longer only affecting (or even chiefly affecting) the populace with the right to vote. I personally love the benefits of globalization, but we will have to instigate effective and democratic global governance systems in order to make it work better and better respond to crisis such as global warming or financial turmoil.

Porter or Pollution Haven?

May 8, 2010Climate Change, Harvard, It's personal nowNo Comments

A research paper that I wrote while at Harvard last year has been awarded by the Swedish Competition Authority (Konkurrensverket) and on May 25th (my birthday) I’ll receive 10,000 Swedish crowns at an award ceremony in Stockholm, nice! The paper study what effect the cost of complying with environmental regulations have on the competitiveness of emissions intensive industries and you can download it here: porter-or-pollution-haven-jakob-rutqvist

Nobel Prize mania

April 20, 2010It's personal now1 Comment

I just learned that I’ll attend a World Bank conference in May together with some of my best and oldest friends

Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 1972
Robert Solow, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 1987
James Mirrlees, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 1996
Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 2001
Eric Maskin, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 2007
Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 2009

Earth Awards 2010

March 23, 2010Climate Change, GlobalFOCUS, It's personal nowNo Comments

The Earth Awards 2010 is now calling for submissions and the grand prize total is $50,000. I was one of the finalists last year and spent an amazing weekend in New York for the awarding ceremony event at the Four Seasons. If you have a good idea, don’t hesitate to submit it!

From the organizers:

We seek sustainable innovations that offer solutions to the ecological and social challenges of the 21st century.

We would like to invite you to submit your innovations in one of the following six categories: Product, Future, Built Environment, Social Justice, Fashion, Systems.

Apart from a monetary prize, all finalists of The Earth Awards 2010 will have the unique opportunity to pitch their ideas and innovations to world business leaders, helping them to transform their designs into market-ready solutions.

Please see our website www.theearthawards.org and the attached call for entries for more information. Feel free to contact me with any questions, or if you require additional information. We look forward to your submission.

My iPhone apps

March 21, 2010It's personal now, Miscellaneous1 Comment

I just recently bought my first iPhone and it’s possible the best buy of my life. I’ve found some nice apps and thought I would share them.

Facebook - Goes without saying, with push service
Skype - Obviously
Google - All google apps in one iPhone app, including voice search. Cool!
SR - Swedish radio app
BBC World News - BBC text and live video news
NYTimes - News with a broad selection of categories: World, U.S., Politics, Business, Technology, etc.
White House - News and videos (a lot of videos for Obama fans to enjoy)
China Daily - Chinese news in English, has a nice feature with travel and tourism information
Nike+ - Track and benchmark your training, requires a Nike transmitter in your trainers
SOUTcast - Great radio app with thousands of stations and a really good browsing system
WunderRadio - Also a great radio app, not as good browsing but nice features like GPS-tracked local radio stations as well as a play in background feature that uses Safari to enable background playing.

FORES

February 3, 2010Climate Change, FORES, It's personal now1 Comment

I’ve started my new job as program director for environment at the FORES think tank in Stockholm this week and I’m really excited about the road ahead.

My responsibility will be to coordinate a project portfolio ranging from carbon trading conferences to high quality academic research together with renowned professors in Sweden and beyond.

I will also do research myself and be the editor of a series of policy papers and reports on environmental economic policy. The first material will be published not too far off in the future and I’ll of course upload the material here.

More about FORES:

Forum for Reforms, Entrepreneurship and Sustainability (FORES)

The green and liberal research institute

An independent research foundation dedicated to furthering entrepreneurship and sustainable development through liberal solutions to societal challenges brought on by accelerated globalisation and global warming.

FORES’ main activities is to initiate research projects and public debates that will result in concrete reform proposals in relevant policy areas such as:

Market solutions to environmental issues

Harnessing the positive potential of immigration

The role of civil society in entrepreneurship

The flexibility of labour markets

The protection of the civil rights of the individual

Modernising public services

In so doing FORES relies heavily on a vast network of academics, supported and coordinated by a small core of research managers and communication officers. Papers and books from the Institute are subjected to peer review processes. Researchers and reviewers are drawn from universities and colleges across Sweden, and some abroad. Studies are empirically oriented in order to be as policy relevant as possible.

The Institute makes full use of new media, with its webpage being the focal point for its communication and dissemination of research findings and public debates. FORES strives to be an interactive forum for all those interested in its activities.

To ensure the independence of the Institute it has been constituted as a foundation with a board of directors composed of academics, experienced former politicians, businesspeople and opinion leaders. The founders of FORES are the Swedish Centre Party, the Bertil Ohlin Institute and Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan.

The known universe

January 27, 2010It's personal now, Miscellaneous2 Comments

Truly mind boggling movie clip. I once heard a Swedish astrophysicist at MIT reflect about space and humanity’s seemingly total irrelevance in the great big universe. He said that it was quite common amongst space scholars to at one point or another become a bit sad over the fact that we are so small and know so little and that the time we are alive is so short it could truly be called a “fart in space”. But, he said, lately he had begun to believe that there maybe isn’t that much intelligent life in space after all, and that we humans-if we don’t mess up our planet before we succeed-might in fact carry forward the species that will eventually colonize space and make large parts of the universe sparkle with life where there before was none. If he’s right, we are not carriers of such small a significance in the great big unknown after all.